Sun Belt conference announces league basketball schedule

UL-Lafayette opens conference play at Arkansas-Little Rock

The Sun Belt Conference announced its 20-game league schedule for men’s and women’s basketball Thursday morning.

The schedule is the same for the men’s and women’s programs, with each team playing a doubleheader on game day.

The Ragin’ Cajuns open league play with a road game against Arkansas-Little Rock on Dec. 30, then return to play Troy in their SBC home opener Jan. 3. The tip-off times are determined by the host site.

There aren’t many quirks in the schedule. The Cajuns alternate between home and away contests the first six games of the league schedule before settling into lengthy periods on the road or at home.

The longest league road game stretch is a three-game set that takes the Cajuns on the road from Jan. 22 to Feb. 5. That will come on the heels of three home games in six days.

The SBC also announced its men’s and women’s conference tournament brackets. The tournament will again be at the UNO Lakefront Arena, with the women’s tournament starting March 11 and the men’s tournament starting a day later.

The top eight men’s and women’s teams will advance to the tournament, with the men’s Nos. 1 and 2 seeds earning byes to the semifinals and the Nos. 3 and 4 seeds earning byes to the quarterfinals. The men’s championship game will be televised by ESPN2, and all women’s tournament games will be broadcast on ESPN3.

New SBC teams New Mexico and Idaho are football-only members of the conference, and are not on the basketball schedule.